Harrison Ford and Phoebe Waller-Bridge tried to out-prank each other during the making of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” the latter actor revealed in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly.
“From the moment we met, it was shithead’s all round,” Waller-Bridge said. “We were taking the piss out of each other all the time, and having a lot of fun. The most extraordinary thing about working with Harrison is that you’re definitely at work — in that his work ethic is so on point, and his discipline is so extraordinary — but because he’s that specific and the foundation of the work is really strong, the rest of it can be really fun. There were a lot of pranks… lots of pranks.”
One memorable prank involved using masks of the actors’ faces that were created for their stunt doubles to wear during filming. Waller-Bridge put on a mask of Ford’s face and hid in his trailer so that she could scare him. It worked, but Ford expresses terror in his own stoic way.
“It scared the crap out of him, actually,” Waller-Bridge said. “Even though that ‘actually’ is only represented by him blinking three times and saying, ‘Get the hell out of my trailer.'”
As reported by Entertainment Weekly: “about 20 minutes later, Ford returned the favor, sneaking up on Waller-Bridge while wearing the mask of her face. He even took the time to tie his shirt into a little bow to match her character’s outfit. When asked about this later, Ford fittingly doesn’t divulge details, demurring, ‘I didn’t think of it as a “prank.” But yes, I mean, we spent a lot of time fooling around.'”
Waller-Bridge joins the “Indiana Jones” franchise in “Dial of Destiny” as Helena Shaw, the goddaughter of the eponymous archeologist. Helena links up with Indiana to locate an ancient device believed to grant the power of time travel. The Nazis, led by Mads Mikkelsen’s Jürgen Voller, are also after the device. Waller-Bridge said her connection to Ford was almost instantaneous on set.
“He immediately went, ‘Hey!’ like an old friend,” Waller-Bridge remembered of meeting Ford for the first time. “And from that day on, we were fine. We read the script for about five minutes, and we all had a scotch for an hour. So it was perfect.”
“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” opens in theaters nationwide June 30 from Disney.
